National Nutrition Month launched by Guv, CM

Launching National Nutrition Month in Lucknow, Governor Anandiben Patel and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that nutrition of women and children was necessary to make the country and the state strong, capable and prosperous.

At a function on Tuesday, the governor and the chief minister also released a baby shower card ‘Shagun’ and a mascot ‘Aanchal’ of the ICDS department and performed baby showers of five pregnant women and distributed fruit baskets to 10 children as a gift.

The two top leaders also inaugurated 529 new Anganwadi centres constructed at a cost of about Rs. 4,142 lakh in 24 districts of the state. Citations were distributed to Anganwadi workers, chief sevikas and child development project officers and appointment letters were distributed to 91 newly-selected child development project officers.

Addressing the programme, Governor Anandiben Patel said that special attention needs to be paid to the health of women, girls, and children in order to make the country and the state strong, capable, and prosperous. “Remarkable efforts have been made by the state government under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in this direction,” she said.

Emphasising inter-departmental coordination for effective operation of various programmes during National Nutrition Month, Patel said that the results of programmes related to removal of malnutrition among women and children could be further improved and that public participation had a useful role in getting rid of malnutrition.

Expressing his views in the programme, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that under the National Nutrition Campaign, 2021, special emphasis would be given on various activities. “The state government has done many innovative experiments for ensuring the nutrition of women, girls and children, and they have yielded satisfactory results. The government tried to take forward the work of running Anganwadi centres in the form of pre-primary as well as primary schools so that along with the physical and the mental health of the children, the education was carried out in a proper manner,” he said.

Congratulating the newly-appointed child development project officers for the selection, Yogi said that the selection of candidates for various posts had been done on the basis of merit with complete fairness and transparency by the state government and advised the new appointees to work sincerely by joining National Nutrition Month campaign.

He also said that the state government has made meaningful efforts for empowering women and Mission Shakti-3 was being conducted. “Women constables have been given the responsibility of beat. These constables are also doing the work of spreading awareness regarding women,” he said.

Earlier, in her welcome address, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Women Welfare and Child Development and Nutrition, Swati Singh, said that the state government was running various schemes to make children and elderly people strong and self-reliant. “Freedom from malnutrition is necessary for the social and economic progress of the country and the state,” she said.